Dolphin Address 44
November 8th 2005
I do love to laugh for a reason, however absurd. Therefore I've never been too keen on jokes. They are mostly prefab humour, canned laughter and meant to put a smile on your face whether you're in the mood or better be. It feels a bit like the dolphin's ever smile, like Rick Barry, the former trainer of 'Flipper' once put it: 'They'd even smile when told to jump through a hoop of fire'.
Still there is this weird scientific discovery that when you put your face into a smile the interplay of muscles activates your mind into feeling happy. Maybe that is why we're charmed by dolphins, by the sheer radiation of their pre-supposed happiness.
So let me share some of this kind of fun with you by presenting a concise anthology of these little spots of sunshine in the ever changing context of human display.
In Kilcolgan there is a gas station comfortably located on my trips to Galway for a pee-break. Inside is this huge toilet roll container by the make of 'Katrin'. Some years ago I had a girl friend by that name, a sore and short lived relationship that culminated in Knock. The company's slogan therefore seems so apt, if not hilariously chosen: 'Less is more'.
A touch of nasty does seem to heighten the appetite for fun, perhaps by contrast. To me T-shirt texts can be goldmines of fun fashion, though personally I would shy away from telling the same joke over and over. It was the subtle field of tension between invitation and threat that took me when I saw this grizzly guy in Galway that read on his chest: 'Friendly when drunk'.
If you could be arrested for cultural abuse I saw a very likely candidate in this Japanese tourist, summing up his appreciation of the Irish drinking philosophy: 'Two beers or not two beers'.
A very different angle that pertains here is the view from the other side of the bar, soberly stated on a notice on the wall of Keogh's pub in Kinvara: 'If you're drinking to forget, please pay in advance.'
Downright cruel and therefore very effective is the warning in the Celtic T-shirt shop in Lahinch: 'Children left unattended will be sold as slaves.'
McDermotts pub, for years now my favourite feeding trough collects these items, the general purport of them encouraging drinking by focussing on diverging angles, but two of them stick out. The first one puts you in place with no option to retort: 'Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you're an asshole.' The other one cheers you into the club of lonely loonies: 'My wife always complains I never listen to her, or something like that.'
I'd like to end this little session with a reassuring notice that jewels the canteen of the catamaran wharf of friends of mine in Groningen. They appear to have found the perfect solution for the fix we are put into by the Irish pub legislation: 'We don't mind you smoking, as long as you don't blow it out.'
I hope this kind of fun has at least lifted the corners of your mouth a little. It's just some free fun, there for the taking, always somewhere in the making, like a Halloween dolphin smiling mask.
Jan Ploeg
, Shed Fanore
, November 8th 2005
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